Oregon’s First
Conservation Bank

A
First. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently
approved Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) operation
of the first conservation bank in Oregon. The 80-acre conservation
bank, located near Medford, Oregon, will be used 1) to ensure that
future road and highway improvement projects in the Rogue River
Valley don’t conflict with efforts to conserve several threatened
species that occur in the region, and 2) to avoid costly project
delays that can arise from such conflicts.

Species Benefit. The species that will benefit
from the conservation bank include two endangered plants, Cook’s
lomatium and the large-flowered woolly meadowfoam; and the threatened
vernal pool fairy shrimp, a small translucent crustacean (related
to lobsters, crabs and saltwater shrimp). Each of the species
occur in vernal pool habitat— small, shallow wetlands that fill
with water during fall and winter rains and dry up in spring and summer. These
wetlands have become very rare in Oregon and throughout the nation. In
Oregon, this habitat is concentrated in an area near Medford known
as the Agate Desert. The area was identified as a high priority
conservation area in the state’s Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation
Strategy and in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s recovery plan
for vernal pool ecosystems.

Habitat Protections. The land acquired by
ODOT is important because it occurs in this high-priority area and
currently supports populations of each of the species. The land
contains some of highest quality vernal pool habitat left in the region,
as well as other rare habitats such as oak savanna and native perennial
bunchgrass prairie. The ODOT conservation bank also abuts a
Nature Conservancy preserve and, together, the two properties constitute
a single block of nearly 225 acres of protected vernal pool habitat. The
protection of large blocks of habitat distributed throughout the Agate
Desert is a key component of the state and federal conservation strategies
for vernal pool species.

Wetlands Addressed. In addition to being the
first conservation bank in the state, the ODOT bank is significant
in that it serves dual purposes— it also addresses impacts
to wetlands under state and federal laws. The Fish and Wildlife
Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Oregon Department
of State Lands collaborated to make sure that approval of ODOT’s
conservation bank was subject to only one set of standards and procedures. This
substantially reduced the time and effort spent on having the bank
approved and was an important factor in ODOT’s willingness
to become Oregon’s pioneering conservation banker.

Process Streamlined. Approval of the conservation
bank is a significant milestone for Oregon. It represents the
introduction of an important conservation tool to the state and provides
protection of habitat for some of the state’s most threatened
species while still accommodating crucial transportation infrastructure
investments in a rapidly developing region. The collaboration
between various agencies to streamline regulatory processes should
serve as a model for future efforts and as an incentive for other
entities to engage in conservation banking in the state.

What Is a Conservation Bank?

Conservation banks are permanently protected lands that are
managed for endangered, threatened, and other at-risk species. In
exchange for permanently protecting the bank lands and managing
them for listed and other at-risk species, the Fish and Wildlife
Service approves habitat or species “credits” based
on the natural resource values on the bank lands. The
land owners can then use these credits to compensate for the
environmental impacts of their development projects, or sell
the credits to others who need to provide compensation.

Conservation banks are typically large enough to compensate
for the impacts of multiple projects. The concentration of
conservation actions for multiple projects into a single large
area provides greater benefit to the species than if those
actions occurred at the sites of the individual projects,
in which case a site might be too small and isolated to support
populations of the species. Because of the financial
and conservation benefits, conservation banking has become
a much used tool for regulatory compliance and conservation
in other states.